A dash for campaign cash before FEC deadline

Seeking Cinderella-style to deliver a glittering impression by midnight, Washington’s lawmakers in Washington, D.C., have joined a dash for campaign cash in the remaining hours leading up to the start of July.

June 30 is the Federal Election Commission deadline for reporting donations during the second quarter of the year. The reports are considered key indicators of an incumbent’s strength or a challenger’s ability to raise money.

Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Wash., a member of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, had a June 30 fund raising breakfast at the Capitol Hill Club, the tariff being $2,500 to be a co-host, $1,000 for political action committees and $500 for individuals.

Reichert was back on the premises — Republicans’ major watering hole next to House office buildings – for a late afternoon reception: PACs were asked for $1,000, individuals again $500.

Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., had a $1,000-per-person golf outing at Westfield’s Golf Club in Clifton, Virginia.

The Democrats were at their usual business of demonizing Dino Rossi.

Interviewed by The Hotline, Rossi said he hopes to court voters who haven’t made up their minds. Seeking a metaphor for supporters, opponents and voters in the middle, he added: “The saints are with us, the sinners are not. And the ones that can be saved are the ones we will be talking to.”

The Democratic Senate Campaign Committee and Washington State Democrats sent out e-mail blasts, accusing Rossi of injecting religion into the race. (The Dems’ amen corner, The Stranger and Horsesass.org web site picked up the story.)

“Does Rossi really believe that anyone who supports Patty Murray is a ‘sinner?’ That teachers are sinners? That firefighters are sinners? That Democrats are sinners? That you and I are sinners?” he asked.

He also decried Rossi for “attending DC fundraisers hosted by a bunch of right-wing lobbyists.”

Unmentioned in this appeal for small donations was Murray’s own big-ticket Washington, D.C., fundraiser at The Mott House on the Senate side of Capitol Hill. The tab: $5,000 to host, $2,500 for PACs, $1,000 for individuals.

The Murray campaign had another event at Mott House on June 17.

The Republicans, in turn, have sought to demonize House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

A stream of boilerplate National Republican Congressional Committee releases have sought to tie Reps. Rick Larsen and Adam Smith, D-Wash., to the Speaker — and to link 3rd District Democratic House candidate Denny Heck to her alleged sins.

The releases have been followed by anti-Pelosi letters from NRCC Chairman Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, and on Wednesday by a frantic appeal from House Republican leader John Boehner.

“So please make an immediate Emergency Contribution of at least $39 — one dollar for every Democrat held seat we need to win to elect a new Republican majority,” wrote Boehner.

“That’s one dollar for every vote needed to stop the jobs-killing agenda of President Obama and Speaker Pelosi – an investment in our fight to cut government spending, get control of the debt, repeal ObamaCare, and help small business create new jobs.”

Boehner will be in Bellevue on July 8 for two big-ticket events, a reception and dinner, to benefit Reichert. The three-term congressman faces a formidable challenger in former Microsoft executive Suzan DelBene.

The dash for cash is a sensitive subject in America’s political class.

Big ticket fund raising events are almost never mentioned on the “public schedules” distributed by Senate and House press secretaries.

Over a few years in the late 1980’s and 1990’s – when there was a spirited Northwest press corps in Washington, D.C. – reporters were sometimes allowed to witness larger events. (Aides to Sen. Slade Gorton did try to have KING-5 News and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer thrown out of the Wolf Trap National Performing Arts Park when the Gorton campaign was feting major PAC donors.)

Nowadays, coverage is limited to such major events as Murray’s Golden Tennis Shoes Awards lunch. The Seattle media was officially excluded from Vice President Joe Biden’s February fund raising breakfast for Murray, although seattlepi.com was able to informally attend.

By contrast, once the cash is counted, campaigns will flood reporters’ e-mail boxes with figures on their war chests and bold statements of their success.

In Washington, D.C., meanwhile, strategists for both parties – and such big-money interests as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – will comb the figures for signs of weakness (incumbents) or unexpected strength (challengers).

They’ll decide then what campaigns will get “independent” expenditures expected to blanket the air waves this fall.